


Let Me Help

by lyricwritesprose



Series: Prompts [8]
Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Aziraphale has to process what he's been through, Kissing Bingo, M/M, Sort of hurt/comfort-y, but it ends sweetly, so you know there's going to be some angst, the prompt was "wiping away tears"
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-14
Updated: 2020-08-14
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:34:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25900657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lyricwritesprose/pseuds/lyricwritesprose
Summary: After Armageddon, Aziraphale is upset about how Heaven treated him, and wonders how much of it was his fault.  Crowley has some things to say about it.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: Prompts [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1806139
Comments: 25
Kudos: 161
Collections: Kisses Bingo





	Let Me Help

It wasn’t touched off by an event. There was no disaster. Aziraphale was eating a piece of baklava that Crowley had brought back to the bookshop, making delicious appreciative noises, and then all of a sudden he was blinking hard, lowering the pastry to his plate as if he had forgotten it.

Crowley took the plate out of Aziraphale’s suddenly limp hand. “What’s wrong? Aziraphale?  _ Aziraphale, _ look at me. That’s it.” He pulled off his glasses and put them on the side table next to the baklava. “Talk to me. What’s happening.”

“Just me being extremely silly, I’m afraid,” Aziraphale said, in wavery tones.

“Listen.” Crowley leaned closer. “I know you’re silly. I don’t mind you being silly. I will happily take paint off your coat, or rescue you from things you could have fixed yourself, even though it’s silly. So if you think you can use ‘silly’ to mean, ‘this isn’t worth talking about,’ then—then  _ don’t, _ all right?”

“It really isn’t worth talking about.”

“It’s  _ upsetting you, _ that makes it the most bloody important thing in the world right at this moment. Talk to me, angel.”

“It could have all been gone,” Aziraphale gulped out.

“Yes,” Crowley said, “but it isn’t. It didn’t happen that way.”

“It could have all been gone, and  _ they wouldn’t have cared. _ They never cared about—about this!” He gestured blindly at the baklava. “Or flowers. Or books. Or sunsets on the sea, or trees that grow in peculiar shapes, or, or, hurdy-gurdies, or grapes, and any time I tried to get them to understand these things they didn’t believe me, because I’m not a very good angel, so they assumed that there must be something wrong with grapes because there’s something wrong with  _ me.” _ He sniffled. “If I were better, do you think they would have understood?”

Crowley thought about it. “No,” he decided finally. “I think you’re backwards.”

“Backwards?”

“I think they decided that you aren’t a good angel because you do like flowers, or grapes, or hurdy-gurdies. Because if you pick your target right, the easiest temptation in the world is, ‘Do you want a reason to feel superior to that person,’ and, Aziraphale—Gabriel would be tempted  _ every single time.” _

“He’s an angel,” Aziraphale protested.

“And I’m a demon, and I know what I’m talking about. Gabriel would be  _ dead easy.” _

Aziraphale, for a wonder, didn’t argue.

“They should have listened to you,” Crowley said, very quietly. “It’s unfair that they didn’t.”

A tear broke free of Aziraphale’s eye and rolled down his cheek. Crowley wiped it gently away with his thumb.

“I did—” Crowley took a deep breath. “I did see what they were doing to you. How they treated you. I just couldn’t  _ talk _ to you about it, because you would have told me that it was right and proper.”

Aziraphale shook his head sharply, ignoring the second tear. “They were never less than professional. I was just not—just not—”

_ “They should have listened to you,” _ Crowley repeated fiercely, and wiped the second tear away. “Listen. Do you know the most horrible thing about knowing you?” Which was entirely the wrong way to say what he needed to say, but bless it, he was committed now.

“I shudder to think,” Aziraphale said.

“It wasn’t the times when you pulled the  _ heaven is better _ bullshit, it wasn’t the times you didn’t bloody listen, like when I wanted holy water, it wasn’t the times when you thought I had done something you would hate, like the French Revolution. Those things hurt. But what hurt most was watching you stuck in Heaven’s trap and not being able to  _ help. _ Do you understand?”

“I’m not sure I do,” Aziraphale admitted.

“What I’m trying to say—” Crowley took a deep breath. “What I’m trying to say is that you’re here, and I’m here, and we survived  _ several _ things that should have killed us a heaven of a lot, including Armageddon, and you broke free of traps you’ve been caught in for millenia, and I’m finally standing in a place where maybe I  _ can _ help. So tell me, Aziraphale. What can I do? How can I make it better? I always make things better for you, if you let me, so just  _ let me.” _ He wiped another tear. “Please. After all this time. Let me.”

“I think—staying close,” Aziraphale said.

“I can do that.” Crowley swallowed, and then swallowed again because the first one hadn’t taken. “Do you want me to put my arm around you?”

“I’m not—I don’t—I would hate to impose upon you, my dear boy—”

“That sounds an awful lot like a yes,” Crowley said, moving slowly so that Aziraphale could object if he wanted to.

Aziraphale didn’t object.

“It’s all right,” Crowley murmured, as Aziraphale sagged towards his shoulder. “I’ll help. However. Whatever way you want. I’ll help.”


End file.
